Redwoods State and National Parks

After we finished up in Medford yesterday, we headed west on I-5 to Grants Pass and then caught 199, The Redwoods Highway down to Crescent City, CA. Stopped at the Park Visitor's Center there to see what campgrounds were open etc. Then headed down into the Park(s). Turns out Redwoods is a cooperative management effort of the NPS and the CA Dept of Parks and Rec that includes Redwood National Park, Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park and Prairie creek Redwoods State Park. It's in a large block on the north near the boarder and then a thin strip along the coast down to Prairie Creek and then the NP section below that. Unfortunately, all the campgrounds are in the State Parks - $35 a night! Yikes! We'd spent $6 the night before for a bigger area. Ah, well. Got the tent set up at Prairie Creek and then headed for a drive out Davison Rd. to see if we could find any elk. Saw a few at a distance. Decided to head on down the road to Gold Bluffs Beach and maybe the Fern Canyon. It was a bumpy road but through huge redwood trees and wonderful ferns. We decided to walk out to the Fern Canyon trail but found it involved creek crossings on rocks and logs that didn't meet my standards. Wandered in a little ways but too wet. As we were walking back we saw a bunch of bridges back in a storage area....the season has closed here. We ran into a couple also trying to do the Canyon named John and Jeanne. Couldn't remember ever meeting another John and Jeanne. Turns out they were camped right across the road from us. Had a nice conversation. Had a nice dinner on the beach and waited to see what the sun would do--no clouds so pretty uneventful.

Chapter 2 of the mouse story. John got the traps and set 2 with peanut butter. Went to the bathroom and returned and Gotcha! Mouse 1. Decided to reset that trap in case there was more than 1. Too bad, he was a cute little gray guy. :-(

This morning we got up to a dry tent :-) and sunny skies and 2 more mice! Broke camp and headed into the National Park to walk through the Lady Bird Johnson Grove. As we were going down the road we came upon a herd of elk with this guy as the Bull Elk. It's almost time for the rut and he was bothering those little ladies! Thought his neckwear was stylish.

Further down the road we came to the trail through the grove. Beautiful. Huge trees up and around. (pardon the underline--can't figure out how to get rid of it). It was a delightful mile and a half walk through the early morning forest. Not much bird activity, though we have found that pretty much everywhere we have gone.


Once we finished our walk through the Grove we decided to head back to Oregon and begin our journey up the coast. One redwood tree begins to look like another. It was beautiful though. We headed back up toward Crescent City and then onto 101 up the coast. Oregon has their traveling public act together and have a Mile by Mile booklet for the Coast. It's WONDERFUL. Has all the campgrounds, sites to see, and a Biker Map we picked up has all the scenic routes around the bigger cities. It's going to be fun! Spending tonight at Harris Beach State Park with the thunder of the waves crashing against the rocks to lull us to sleep. Here are a few shots we took on the drive up here.


In and out fog all along the way and a few raindrops now and again...but just a stunning trip!
I take back my statement about not much bird life. The seagulls have been more than plentiful!

A crack in a huge rock that the waves were crashing through. Moon is out tonight...sweet dreams.

Crater Lake NP and then off to the Redwoods!

Boy, have we been poor bloggers this time!!! This is the first time we've had coverage in almost a week. We left Laura and Nick's last Saturday and drove south toward Mt. Hood in Oregon. Along the way we took a drive through the Mt. Adams Wilderness area and had lunch with this wonderful view of Mt. Adams! We camped just past Mt. Hood that evening at a great NF campground. Sunday morning we got up and drove through the John Day Fossil Monument. That was very interesting. There were three different sections, one where you actually saw leaf fossils in place, a second where there was a wonderful Paleontology Museum and the third stunning painted hills. Pictures of that to follow. Camped at another NF campground right on Achonoco Pass - little chilly in the morning! Then off to Crater Lake NP.


We have just spent two magnificent days at Crater Lake National Park. The weather was spectacular and the reflections stunning!

This was the first view of the Crater. The water is incredibly blue and the reflections incredible. It sound like we were very lucky with our weather. John asked one of the Rangers if the lake was always this smooth and he said in all the years he'd worked here, he couldn't remember three days of this level of calm. We climbed up Watchman's Peak to watch the sunset. Though there were no clouds, it was still incredible.
The next morning we got a picture of this lone tree on a ledge. that blue is the water in the lake, not the sky.
And this is Phantom Ship Island. It's small and hides well in the vastness of the Lake (deepest lake in the world). It's a very compelling place....we kept returning to see it. This was from a viewpoint at the end of Sun Lodge trail. The whole day was amazing. One incredible view after another. A photographer's delight! Late yesterday afternoon we unpacked the car onto the table at the campsite in search of our little resident mouse. We cleaned up all the shredded toilet paper he had left the night before and tossed the munched on granola bar. John thought he had seem a blur of him when he opened the door, but after a thorough emptying of the car and search under seats and in the storage area in the back, we found no mouse. Needless to say when we got up this morning, more shredded TP. Guess he really like our car! John's off buying a mouse trap as I'm writing this!

We're off to the Redwoods today. Finally hit the big town of Medford though, so needed to at least get a short blog done so you all didn't think we'd fallen in a lake or down a mountain! All is well and we're having a marvelous time! Will fill in all the blanks and put on more pictures when we do a slow down, do laundry and have access soon.

We're heading to Oregon

Our apologies again for the long, long time since we blogged. The woods in Washington are dark and deep and internet access in the outback is little to none. But the scenery is superlative! I'll do just a few of the highlight pictures today and do a full blog catch up when we get to the big city! It's been a wonderful trip, despite the rainy days and nights. Where it was important we've always been lucky enough to have that little break in the clouds or a sunny day to see that spectacular view, if even for just a few minutes. And waterfalls look even better when it's rained!

On the 20th (Colin's birthday--Happy Birthday to Colin!), we took a boat ride up Lake Chalen. It was in and out showers, but the result of one of those was this gorgeous rainbow that spanned the lake!
We were headed to a small town at the end of the lake, Stehekin, where hiking trails take off into the backcountry. This lake is a natural lake and at it's deepest is 1500'. It's 400' below sealevel. A beautiful ride!

On the 21st we headed into Mt. Rainier National Park. We met up with old high school friends of Jean's and we camped together for two nights. The first morning we took a hike up Pinnacle Peak. Started out in the mist and clouds but by the time it was lunch time this was our scene :-)!


The next morning it was raining lightly so we decided to still take our Carter Falls walk. Well worth it! On the way back we ran into a couple of young folks who were doing the Wonderland Trail all the way around Mt. Rainier. He was having severe knee problems and they still had 38 miles to go so, since we were packing up and heading out, we decided to drive them to their car....so got into the very northwest section of Rainier where we never would have gone. Fun adventure.

After we dropped the kids off, we headed to Nick and Laura's for a couple of days of R&R. On Friday we headed to Mt. St. Helen's with Nick. It was supposed to be a B+ day but started out in low clouds. But not long after we got to the site it opened up and became an A day by the time we left. We'd been here 6 years ago and there has been tremendous change in the regrowth of plants etc. Really interesting.

This morning we're heading out toward Crater Lake in Oregon. Need to get their fairly soon as they close up campgrounds etc early in October....when the snows begin to fall.

More details later. God's created a beautiful world out here! Hugs to all!

Mt. St. Helen's

Nick, Jean and John headed out for a visit to Mt. St. Helen's. We had been there 6 years ago and were curious about the changes since then. We headed out around 10 or so and drove down to the Johnston Ridge Observatory. It's 7 miles from the north edge of the mountain. They have a wonderful theater presentation of the eruption with a very dramatic ending with the screen moving up and the curtains opening to reveal the mountain as it is today. We hiked up to the top of the viewing area. The lava dome in the middle is growing and last time there was still steam coming out of some of the vents. There is a huge glacier behind the dome (in the middle right).


Of the trees that had been knocked down, many of them have been removed and those standing were further from the eruption zone. There are now small cedar and fir trees growing, some flowers and lots of lichen and mosses growing there now. When we were here before it was mostly barren.


We drove on to the ash hummocks and wandered through them a bit. Alot of new plant growth happening here. The whole Park has seen an incredible recovery rate to everyone's surprise.

We headed back to Nick and Laura's with a couple of stops to pick up fuel and a few things we'd forgotten and then home to a wonderful dinner of salmon - yum!! More good conversation and a little packing up in preparation of our departure tomorrow. What a fun visit we had!!

A Surprise Adventure

More wet this morning. Laura and Nick graciously invited us in for breakfast :-) We decided to go ahead and do our hike to Carter Fall as it was more a misting than a real rain. Was a very nice walk up there and my kind of trail where you could actually look around and not have to worry about tripping over rocks and roots.


The Carter Waterfall was beautiful too....

We started back down the trail and not to far along, Jean needed to make a woods visit. While she was gone two kids came by, Jamie and Anya. They were from Cleveland and were doing the Wonderland Trail around the base of Mt. Rainier. They still had 37 miles to go and Jamie was having severe problems with his knee with pain and swelling. He's had surgery twice on the knee. They were considering stopping the hike, but hadn't made a decision yet. They continued down the trail. When Jean returned Nick, Laura and John were discussing the situation. We decided that we would offer to take them down to the Ranger Station at Longmire, about 10 miles down the road where they could probably hitch a ride. As we were walking down the trail we decided that Jean and John could take them to their car at Mowich Lake in the upper northwest section of the park and see that area and then go on to Nick and Laura's. We caught up with them on the trail and made the offer and told them if they wanted to do that to meet us at the Campground. They were almost down there. We went back and started to break camp in preparation of heading to Nick and Laura's and they appeared about 15 minutes later and said if the offer was still open, they would love the ride. This lake is out in the boonies and the chances of catching a ride on a rainy day almost impossible. Laura invited them into the camper for some hot soup and a warm up while we finished packing. Twenty minutes later we headed out. It was a rainy, foggy day and the trip took about 1 1/2 hours. Was sort of a spooky ride going through the woods with the low clouds. The last 30 minutes were on gravel road but we got them to their car safely. They were most appreciative.

Anya and Jamie

After thank yous they were out of there headed to Seattle. We later got an email from them thanking us again and telling us they had a wonderful time in Seattle and got home safely. A fun adventure for us. Meanwhile, we walked down to the lake which on a sunny day would have been a beautiful green, but it was sort of gray today....sort of like our surroundings! We headed back down the hill and then on to Nick and Laura's. By the time we got there the weather had broken and we had sunshine for our arrival. Had a good dinner, got laundry started and had great conversation. Good day!

Pinnacle Peak Trail

We debated whether to take the Pinnacle Peak trail or the Sunrise Trail last night and decided on Pinnacle Peak. It was a steep trail but only 1.3 miles to the saddle. The day was mostly sunny. We stopped at Reflection Lake to get some pictures of Rainier before we headed up, but still cloud covered at the top. First part of the walk was through trees, but then it broke out into incredible views of Rainier!

and when we went over the pass we could see Mt. Adam’s.

We took a small unmaintained trail a little further and found a beautiful small pond – that actually had a reflection of Rainier in it. We had lunch among the wildflowers and enjoyed the view!

After a good amount of time, we headed back down and returned to the campground. What a beautiful day! You can even see the trail along the saddle we took in the pictures! One of the best – great view, great friends and sunny skies! Thank you Andrea for the suggestion!! Headed then for the Paradise Visitor’s Center and watched the movie there and then walked down the Nisqually Vista Trail to view the Nisqually Glacier. Discovered blueberries and huckleberries along the way – had a botany lesson to learn what the difference was – picked up enough huckleberries for breakfast pancakes on Friday. Then back to the campsite and dinner. There were a ton of kids at the campground and on the hike and John talked to one of the teachers and found out they were from an Alternative School for kids at risk from K-8 in the west end of Seattle. Every year since the school was started 19 years ago, the 5-6 graders take a camping trip, do some hiking and a service project in the park. Then in subsequent years the camping gets more difficult. Kids seemed great and lots of parents and teachers along. Sounded like a great program. Ran into some kids in the bathroom and they were having a great time. They had been planting trees after their hike. As we drove by them we clapped and cheered for volunteers – they all smiled. Great day!

Mt. Rainier and Nick and Laura

We packed up our dry tent and headed out of Chelan and on to Mt. Rainier to meet Nick and Laura Bullard. Laura and Jean went to Middle School and one year of high school together. We seem to reunite every 5 or 6 years. They live outside Tumwater. We were going to camp together for a couple of nights and then return to their house for a couple of days.

We took the Chinook Scenic Byway from Natches (where we got some peaches to die for!!) and over the Chinook Pass and then down into Mt. Rainier National Park. Along the way we went by Fife's Peak with it's huge rock face. Once we got into the park we immediately stopped and

snapped this picture before Mt. Rainier's peak disappeared. It's notorious for disappearing in the clouds. It makes it's own weather. Look way up in the clouds for it's peak. There were still a good number of flowers blossoming, despite it being late September. This magenta paintbrush was a new one for us....we're used to red Indian Paintbrushes from Colorado and Wyoming.

One of our favorite stops was Narata Falls. It was one steep walk down there but well worth it!

After countless stops at viewpoints, box canyons, falls and flowers we finally got to Cougar Rock thinking Nick and Laura must have been twiddling their thumbs for hours waiting for us. We had agreed that whoever arrived first leave a note as to which campground we had selected on the message board. Well, no message so we drove around the campground to see if we could find their truck. We were just pulling back into the registration area and who should pull up but Nick and Laura. They had gotten a slow start so hadn't been waiting for us at all.

We got our tent set up and they got their camper leveled and we just sat around and got reacquainted again. Had dinner and then a nice fire and chatted late into the evening. Hopefully no rain tonight!

Lady of the Lake II ride to Stehekin and back.

Yesterday was a catch up day. Began the day, however, with a visit to St. Timothy's EC. It was a small church and it was all made of logs. Quite pretty and three lovely dove windows inside. There was a priest there but the homily was by a priest in California that one of the parishioners read. Seemed a little strange, but who knows. Nice service and nice folks. Then hit the Starbucks to do at least something on the blog....very general pictures so since this is catchup on the blog, there will be some duplicates. Were there quite a long time as it was slow and it had been a long time since I'd worked on the blog so had to deal with the learning curve all over again. We left before they threw is out though and headed to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. Excellent and the portions were huge so have enough for tomorrow too! Sun came out in the afternoon.

This morning was our day to experience the Lake Chelan and Stehekin portion of North Cascades National Park. We were at the Lady of the Lake plenty early so got situated where we could get photo stuff out easily. The sun was out and it looked GREAT.

Lady of the Lake II

Earlier showers had produced this rainbow.

More trees on the hillsides now...and more clouds in the sky.

A couple of showers and this was the result :-)

More trees and sunshine.

There was a fair amount of fire damage through this section.

Great cloud action.

Almost to Stehekin.

Dock is just to the right out of the picture. Deep woods here.

We had an hour and a half layover before the boat returned so we went to visit Rainbow Falls. No rainbow here though....just clouds and a gentle rain.

Beautiful falls though. Also stopped by the old one room schoolhouse on the way back. They built a new school about 5 years ago. Have 1 teacher for 8 grades and 17 students. That would take real dedication! Stopped at the Visitor's Center before we boarded the boat. The ride back was uneventful with lots of sunshine after the first 30 minutes or so. Very nice day!

North Cascades NP to Chelan

Got up this morning to fog and mist. Packed up a very wet tent and headed back to the Diablo Dam to cross it and see what there was to see over there. We stopped on the dam and there was an employee heading down to the mechanical room. He’ll retire after 38 years in December. The clouds and fog were lifting off the lake..beautiful. There was nothing past the dam except maintenance offices.

Diablo Dam

Headed further back down the road to visit the Seattle Light’s Hydroelectric Visitor’s Center to find it “closed for the season”. Ah well. So…it’s off to the east!

Ross Lake NRA

Made a stop at the Ross Lake Trail and wandered down it for about 30 minutes. Saw a beautiful waterfall, but then headed back up. Met a farmer and wife from an hour out of McCook. It’s broken up some and we can see peaks…maybe it will be clear at Washington Pass. Sunshine too! We’ll we’re half a mile from the Pass and can hardly see the trees next to us.

Decided to stop at the turnout and have lunch to see if the clouds lifted, but it’s whiteout. Good lunch of hummus, crackers, apples and cheese in a can. This Clark's Nutcracker came to visit nearby while we were eating.

Heavy clouds until almost Lone Fir Campground…where we thought we might stay, but still cloudy and only 12:40….so on down the road. Stopped in Winthrop. It’s all old western storefronts and lots of western gear. Was one busy little town!

Looks like Estes Park in it’s infancy. Then driving further on 20 we stopped for a tour at the National Forest’s Smokejumper’s Training Center. Excellent tour. John got lots of pictures and there was a delightful young man that did our tour. He’d been doing it for three seasons. Only 350 in the whole Forest Service. This plaque was made by one of the guys from old and new gloves...some blackened with use and others spanking clean.

Then on into Chelan. We checked some motels, but too expensive, but found a nice RV park right in the center of town on the lake so jumped in there and it’s GREAT! Then went to the Apple Cup Café for dinner for burgers and fish and chips – and a GREAT strawberry milkshake! YUM! Nice way to end a rather dreary day.

North Casades National Park-Cascades River Road

Spooky tree by our campsite this morning! After breakfast we headed for the Cascades River Road for a 23 mile drive to heaven!

We returned to the Northern Cascades Visitor's Center and this is what we saw! Get's better and better!!

Was a GREAT DAY!!